Steelers safety Mike Mitchell is Jerk of the Week for complaining that NFL wants safer game

Football will never be safe, but it appears it will never be free of violence and brain injuries not because of the people who run the NFL, but because of some of the jerks who actually play the game.

League executives have been can't-miss punching bags, and Roger Goodell has earned most of that over the years. But the NFL, whether you agree with its methods or not, is trying to make the game safer not for you or me, but for the players on the field. The league has devoted hundreds of millions of dollars to figuring out how to cut down on head injuries, improve equipment, study concussions, what causes them and how to prevent and treat them. That is indisputable fact.

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But this week it also emerged as an indisputable fact that as long as jerks like Pittsburgh safety Mike Mitchell are in uniform, football will never be safe for him and his teammates and his opponents. Because Mitchell doesn't want the game to be safer and he told you that this week when he ranted for four minutes about how the game's gone soft and how attempts to protect his brain and his future are merely attempts to turn pro ball into "flag football."

Mitchell was actually complaining the NFL is working to police the kind of hits that will leave him and other players drooling, unable to put complete sentences together and shells of their current selves long after their playing days are over. The effects of repeated headbanging in sports like football are well known, exhaustively documented, and as former Giant Osi Umenyiora told the Daily News this week, if you are a player who has a problem with trying to make the game safer, that is "just the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

Mitchell was not alone. Rookie Jets safeties Jamal Adams and Marcus Maye both agreed with Mitchell, but at least they recognize the rules that make their jobs harder are actually designed to protect them.

The NFL has already changed almost 50 rules to make football safer and the league has invested well over $100 million and counting to learn more about medical science we still know very little about. The league and its players are all privy to the same information and bleak stats that draw a clear connection between certain collisions and concussions.

The NFL is trying to do something about it. But jerks like Mitchell don't seem to care. They're no different than someone who texts and drives and then complains about getting a ticket before he can kill someone or even himself.

That doesn't make Mitchell a tough guy or a throwback or anywhere close to being correct. It just makes him a jerk.

OFF THE MARK

In reference to LiAngelo Ball leaving UCLA this week because he and his family are upset he and two sticky-fingered teammates remain suspended for shaming their school and their country by shoplifting in China, NCAA President Mark Emmert opened his mouth and proved to the world how out of touch his organization is.

"Is this a part of someone being part of your university as a student-athlete or is it about using college athletics to prepare yourself to be a pro?" he said. "If it's the latter, you shouldn't be there in the first place."

Goodness gracious, that was clearly the second-jerkiest thing uttered all week in the world of sports. The NCAA is a billion-dollar business that has no problem using unpaid athletes masquerading as students to make money. But when it's the other way around, when it is clear that those same "student-" athletes may be using college to their own benefit, they shouldn't be there?

Kettle, meet pot.

How many classes did the UCLA basketball team have to miss while selling their school and the PAC-12 to an international audience when they were in China? How many exams did those players take while on a long road trip to make money for UCLA, the conference and the NCAA? How were those student-athletes, or student volunteers like the team managers and trainers, compensated during that trip? What's their cut of the massive broadcast deal between the PAC-12 and Alibaba Group that will increase the NCAA's global reach?

None.

So when Emmert criticizes kids for trying to get a little something out of their slave-labor agreement, he comes off as aloof and out of touch — qualities that are all too common among jerks.

TWEET TWITS

Big-mouth basketball dad LaVar Ball's tweet this week of a cartoon version of him dunking on President Trump was amusing, and how instantly viral the meme went is indicative of American culture's inability to ignore jerks.

We simply cannot get enough of Ball for any number of reasons. According to Twitter user @chrisrosie22, Ball's dunk on Trump was retweeted more than 50,000 times this week, which is more than any of Trump's tweets since Nov. 19 when Trump was retweeted more than 76,000 times. And what did Trump write about that day?

LaVar Ball.

Now that the three basketball players are out of China and saved from years in jail, LaVar Ball, the father of LiAngelo, is unaccepting of what I did for his son and that shoplifting is no big deal. I should have left them in jail!

DEBBIE DOWNER

Finally, one of the telltale signs of being a complete jerk is you don't have anything nice to say about anyone or anything. Desperate-to-remain-relevant former ESPN reporter Britt McHenry made a lot of noise complaining last month when Colin Kaepernick was named the GQ Citizen of the Year. McHenry thought J.J. Watt, who raised $37 million for Hurricane Harvey victims, was a better choice.

She tweeted her outrage at least nine times in the middle of November, and went on TV to say basically the same thing, that "JJ Watt raised $37 million for Hurricane Harvey victims … but Kaepernick refused to stand for our national anthem."

JJ Watt raised $37 million for Hurricane Harvey victims. 37 MILLION! But Kaepernick refused to stand for our national anthem (a year ago) and is Citizen of the Year. Right...

But this week, Watt was named a winner of the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year with Jose Altuve for precisely those herculean fundraising efforts. So how many times did McHenry tweet about that? How many times did she applaud the choice she campaigned so hard for less than a month ago?

Zero.

McHenry was silent, presumably because she has nothing nice to say about anyone or anything. She's just a hater, someone who mines negativity and trades in low-hanging criticism.

And if that's not truest definition of a jerk, please let us know what is.